Sex on the Hill

“Hey, want to have sex?” Seems simple enough.  Yet, this isn’t how things tend to go down at McDaniel.

 Let me rewind a little . . . *cool special effect used in movies to denote that we’re going back in time* It came up in a recent Women’s Issues Group meeting… “She wants to fuck him.”

 This was the response to a proposed scenario of what people would think of a girl making out with everyone except one specific person at a party. While shocking to me because I’m a germophobe, this sexified version of Duck-Duck-Goose seemed incredibly familiar to everyone else at the meeting.

Responses at the meeting ranged from, “I’d judge the girl, but I’d judge the guy she’s trying to get with too,” as one male member of WIG said, to defensive replies such as, “You make it obvious that way and bang out all your issues next time.” Bang out, meant quite literally.

My brain fired off in every direction—was this about making the object of your loin-centered affection jealous?

But this is common. In fact, within the presence of alcohol, many would say that the lack of this type of behavior would be unusual. As senior Kristina Martin said, quite bluntly, the major part of achieving this feat is usually “alcohol, alcohol, oh yea alcohol!” Nothing surprising there—many people openly state that they need a little social lubrication before heading down to Bonesville.

And it made me wonder how we judge college women’s sexual tactics. It’s far less socially acceptable for a woman to be as upfront about her sexual desires than it is for a man, as I’ve written about before. So what options are left for women who are, undeniably, sexual creatures too? Are these tactics “sneaky” or “devious?”

Perhaps the girls’ ploy is the compromise. Women who do not want to be objectified, dismissed, and discarded as solely sexual objects, from whom power (or agency, to be more correct) can be extracted, present themselves as sexual objects to other people. It’s a compromise, it’s not necessarily feminist or progressive…

However, in a more lighthearted spirit, other people offered more creative methods of seduction.

“It usually starts with a massage,” said one junior. (I want to go to these magical massage parties…because initiating a massage on a stranger seems awkward at best). Another student said, “I’m old-fashioned. I get their information first and try to talk to them for a while before being so open about what I want.” This latter choice is preferable from the standpoint of safety. Surely, one would like to get to know a guy before boarding the Sausage Train.

The most creative response, to my shameful surprise, came from a man. “I cannot tell you how many times I have used the movie “The Proposal” to f***.” (Intrigued, I read on). “I notice something about [the man I’m into] like his watch, bracelet or anything that will allow me to touch him. After grabbing his attention he kind of gets where I am going, but it all starts from when you notice The Bulge! Thanks to Ryan Reynolds!”

Ladies, next time, maybe you should let Ryan do all the work.